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How to Use PPC Ads to Capture New Residents

Pay-per-click (PPC) ads are great for communities looking for instant gratification. In this post, the Senior Living team at Linkmedia 360 walks you through best practices to target not only the digitally-savvy senior, but the adult-child influencer as well.

I’d also recommend signing up for our Webinar on May 23rd at Noon, where the Linkmedia 360 and MatrixCare teams address the “Digitally Savvy Senior” and how to create a solid digital marketing foundation for your community with proven methods and tactics.

What is PPC Advertising?

PPC advertising refers to a model of digital marketing where a company pays to have its ad hosted on a website and pays a fee each time their ad is clicked on or interacted with.

PPC advertising can turn into an indispensable asset in your marketing toolbox when combined with effective keyword research and an engaging call-to-action (CTA).

Keep in mind – with PPC advertising you’re merely “renting” the position where your ad appears, and when your ad spend stops, so will your placement. PPC advertising works phenomenally when augmented with your organic and local listings, but doesn’t replace organic SEO. In short – PPC advertising provides short-term value, but your long-term success is still dependent on your organic ranking.

3 Actionable Ways to Ignite Your Pay-Per Click Ads

Tip 1 – Know Your Target

This means knowing who you’re going to target in a particular campaign, i.e. the adult-child influencer (ACI) vs the digitally savvy resident. They’re two distinctly different audiences, with different expectations.

Like the Senior Living team at Linkmedia 360 learned at Argentum, balancing the unique needs of both the ACI and the digitally-savvy resident is no easy task.

Senior Living ProTip: When your team is performing keyword research and creating your targeted keyword list – split the ACI and the digitally-savvy resident into two separate campaigns in Google Adwords, or whatever software your community is using to track the performance and success of your PPC strategy.

You’ll ensure that the data you’re receiving for each group is pure, and you won’t mix up or confuse the keywords that are performing well in each respective grouping. That’s not to say that the keywords and data you’ll receive won’t inform the overall strategy, but it’s best to keep each audience in its own distinct bucket.

The oft-famous and quoted pet-peeve from ‘Seinfeld’ about “double dipping a chip” should be applied here. You don’t double dip your lists!

While we’re in that vein, make sure that regardless of grouping or lists, your community includes phrases and keywords your prospective residents or ACI’s are actively searching for.

Tip 2 – Utilize Geo-Targeting

Your community may be ideal for a particular resident, but is that resident truly in your “backyard”? Enable geo-targeting to ensure your community doesn’t miss out on traffic coming from out of state. Consider the area your community is located, and also be mindful that users may be searching for you based on where they would like to be, not necessarily where they are. While this guide is about maximizing the local traffic coming to your website, you certainly don’t want to be invisible to potential residents searching for living options out of state/region.

Again, the geography of where your community sits factors heavily into this. When used to differentiate yourself from the competition, your location can contribute to your community’s continued success. If you position your community as the ideal place to fit the lifestyle of your prospects, you may be one step closer to enticing them to take a tour and see your amenities firsthand.

Again, your city and state help tell the story of your community. Make it a poignant, relevant one to both your prospects and the search engines indexing your web pages.

Tip 3 – Create clean, Easy-to-Use Landing Pages Designed to Convert

As the digital landscape continues to shift and evolve, one facet of digital marketing facing senior living that isn’t slowing down is the user experience, or (UX). This means that your community needs to create a digital experience that suits the needs of the users visiting and interacting with your website. Certain best practices can be applied here generically as “must-haves”

Responsive design (can be viewed on mobile and desktop seamlessly)

Visible CTA’s above the fold

Clean, easy-to-use interface

Redirecting the user to the proper place if a page no longer exists

Again, that wasn’t an exhaustive list by any stretch, but it helps provide an initial framework for you. How does this all relate to your PPC strategy?

When your community creates a PPC ad, make sure you direct your user to a dedicated landing page so you can track how many people are interacting with your given ad. Also keep in mind that this landing page shouldn’t be too busy. The users interacting with your community are clicking your PPC ad because they’re expressing serious interest in the keyword phrase your community strategically chose to target.

The worst thing your PPC ad could do is direct your user to the home page, or any other page unrelated to what the user initially clicked on. That provides a poor UX, and – chances are – your visitor will be turned off by having to search through your website for the content they were promised in your PPC ad. Their next stop could be one of your competitors.

Stay Tuned for More Tips

As you’re already aware, the senior living landscape isn’t the same now as it was years ago, and things aren’t going backwards. According to recent Pew research studies, four in 10 seniors now own smart phones. That’s more than twice the amount in 2013.

Digitally-savvy seniors are here, folks. It’s better to embrace this truth than neglect it. If you or your team still needs a push in the right direction, tune into our webinar on May 23rd.

If you miss out on that for whatever reason, you can always contact us directly. We’re here to help. Until next time!